いたす - Grammar Discussion

Grammar Points
#22

I’m having trouble understanding an example sentence in this grammar point.

はいしゃくしてもよろしいですか。[Humble 借かりる (拝借はいしゃくする)]
[Even if I borrow…] May I borrow it?

Does いたす imply to ask permission like the word -may- does or is it something else in the sentence?
I’ve never seen よろしい before so I only have the dictionary look up for that part but I don’t think I actually get what it means.

Or I guess why is -may- being used? Why isn’t the sentence just a polite way of saying I’m borrowing something?
Please help and explain like I’m 5 years old

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#23

I too could use some ELI5ing on this:

拝借してもよろしいですか。

This confuses me. How am I supposed to know I need to put the も here together with the Te form? The grammar point doesn’t even mention して?

Same here, why do we suddenly use していない here?

まだその映画を拝見していないので、一緒に見に行きませんか。

I get the “humble enough that する will do part but why is the first answer しても and the second していない? Have I totally missed a grammar point somewhere?

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#24

you’re not alone, same here. the grammar page gives absolutely 0 reason why I should expect いたす to suddenly conjugate to して-whatever. on the contrary, the page seems to imply I’m supposed to be adding kana いた to make things more polite, but then they just … vanish in the SRS sentences?

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#25

いたす and する are two different verbs, not conjugations of each other and we’re not just adding random kana somewhere. In the grammar point, there is a red “caution” box that says that words that use the kanji 拝 do not use いたす because they’re humble by default. That’s why for some of these sentences we don’t use いたす even though this is the いたす grammar point; we have to learn when we can’t use it, too.

拝借してもよろしいですか is almost covered in the てもいい grammar point and its twin sibling, the verb-てもいい grammar point. よろしい is a more formal alternative to いい, but otherwise this is just a basic structure that’s often used for asking permission.

拝見していない is covered in the ている (state of being) grammar point. Just a humble version of 見ていない for “have not seen”.

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#26

Hey,
can someone explain me why there is no “ご” before the answer ?
この電車でんしゃはあと５分ふんで 出発しゅっぱついたします。ご注意ちゅういください
Thanks

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#27

いたす has multiple roles. The three main ones in the context of 敬語 are:

① 謙譲語Ⅰ - talk humbly about one’s own action that affects the target of respect.

This is the form with お or ご that the grammar point mostly talks about. It also includes those する verbs with 拝 etc. But this form can only be used when the person being shown respect is directly affected by a humble action.

Example:

ご説明いたします “I will humbly explain (to you, my superior)”.

② 謙譲語Ⅱ a.k.a. 丁重語 - talk humbly about one’s own action that doesn’t directly affect the target of respect.

This covers cases where a humble action simply affects someone other than the person being shown respect, for example:

田中に説明いたします “I will humbly (with respect to the listener) explain (to Mr or Mrs Tanaka, who is not my superior)”.

It also covers cases where a humble action doesn’t directly affect anyone else at all but the speaker still wants to be humble vs. the listener:

わたくしは朝7時に出発いたします “I will humbly (with respect to the listener) depart at 7 am (but the act of departure does not affect anyone in particular)”.

③ Also usually grouped under 謙譲語Ⅱ a.k.a. 丁重語, but basically used like 丁寧語 - just being “more polite”.

For this use, it’s not even necessary to talk about one’s own action, e.g.:

いい香りがいたします “It smells nice”.

So the questions we have to ask to find out which forms can be used are:

  1. Is it my own action (or an action of my side)?
  2. Does it involve the party I’m showing respect to?

In the case of the train departing, this is unfortunately not so obvious.

We could say that while the train departing is not the speaker’s own action, it’s still an action of their side if the speaker represents the company or even group of companies that are involved in operating the train or delivering the service to the customer as a whole.

We could also say that the train’s departure at least affects people on the train.

In the end, the answer to why there is no ご here is that while Japanese people might agree with the first answer, they usually will not agree with the second one. 出発 is something the train does by itself. It’s not an action taken with respect to a specific person or group. Therefore, 謙譲語Ⅰ can’t be used.

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#28

Hey, thanks for this amazing explanation !
I am glad I asked, I really couldn’t have guessed.
I would have liked an explanation for this on the bunpro lesson tho

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#29

まだその映画を はいけんしていない ので、一緒に見に行きませんか。

why していない rather than しない ?

#30

〜ていない is attached to the まだ here to mean “still haven’t done〜” or “in the process of still not doing”

On bunpro

Grammar discussion page

#31

thanks - really appreciate that, dissapointed i missed it

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#32

お荷物をお持ちいたしましょうか？

Shall I take your baggage?

Why is using いたしますか wrong (“Do I take your baggage?”)? Why is using いたしてもいいですか wrong (“Is it okay to take your baggage?”)?

I would have never guessed いたしましょうか as that implies some kind of “we” doing things.

#33

100% agree
The explanation is not complete on the grammar page.

Is this the only humble/respectful form that can be used in such a situation when talking about things instead of people? My first instinct was to try なさる which is used for actions of other people. If it’s used when speaking about actions of other people I thought it might work for things as well, but my guess was wrong.

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#34

We usually try to keep the JLPT explanations limited to things that will actually be tested on, but I agree that this is an interesting topic.

@nekoyama , thanks for supplying the extra info! I am going through another article right now as well and will probably add a relatively short Fun-fact to the いたす grammar point. This is the kinda thing that would be great to be able to do as a blog type post, as the general concept applies to quite a few grammar points, rather than just いたす.

:thinking: :thinking:

I might see if there is something we can do with the new ‘decks’ setup, where we have grammar lessons divided into groups with more in depth explanations, like a 敬語 group divide into 丁寧語, 尊敬語, and 謙譲語, each with an overall explanation before the individual grammar point lessons.

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#35

I think the idea is that a lesson (or the preceding lessons) should contain enough information for the user to be able solve all the exercises of a grammar point without leaving any rules uncovered, without having to consult extra resources or discussion.
While extra resources should help you expand and clarify your understanding.

Essentially the problem I see is that the example doesn’t match the explanation: either the explanation is incomplete or the example is inappropriate.

I can think of a few ways to deal with the situation:

  1. Replace that example and leave that aspect of いたす (temporarily) uncovered.
  2. Create a new lesson that covers that aspect of いたす separately (like we have different lessons for some other grammar points).
  3. Expand the explanation of the existing lesson.
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#36

Agree, also bumped into that train sentence and spent 20min trying to figure out before finding the particular post explaining it. Quite time consuming to read a full thread to get something that is actively tested in the reviews :confused:

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#37

駅の前で＿＿＿。(待つ)
I will wait in front of the station.

Bunpro’s answer：お待ちいたします
My answer：おまちしました (marked as wrong)

What tells you that you need to use いたす instead of お〜する?

Edit: Nevermind. I figured out.
I got the tense wrong. I was using the past tense when the question wanted the present tense.
If you submit “おまちします”, you will get “Can you try a grammar structure that is used as a part of humble speech?”, which should hint that you need to use いたす.

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#38

この電車はあと５分で______。ご注意ください。(出発する)

This train will depart in 5 minutes. Please, be careful.
自分、又は自分のグループの行動を示すものすごく丁寧な敬語表現。

A very humble expression that highlights your own actions, or those of your in-group.

Why is the answer 出発いたします and not ご出発いたします?

According to いたす (JLPT N4) | Bunpro, it says “ご(1) + ［する］ Verb + いたします”
So, I was expecting the answer to be ご出発いたします.

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#39

Hey @FlippFuzz !

ご/お is usually used with いたす when you want to express that you are putting yourself in a lower position to do something for another person. For example, if someone says that they will ご説明いたす something, it has the nuance of ‘(I am going to put myself in a lower position and) I will respectfully explain’. Since the train leaving, 出発いたす, is not an action you are doing for another person (in this context), it will sound a bit unnatural to use お/ご before it!

I hope this helps!

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#40

“Regarding 募集 specifically, note that the example sentence with 募集 has an orange note that this is one of the exceptions where ご (not お) is not used.”

The question does not have any such note in it’s current iteration.

Are the prefixes お/ご considered conjugations? Because the hint it gives if you add it here is “Could you try another way of conjugating this structure?” (Honestly, I don’t know that a yellow hint has ever saved me except for letting me try something else - they seem to always be extremely misleading or vague)

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#41

Hey there @11442 !

This seemed like an error on our end so I have changed the hint to say ‘Can you remove something from the beginning?’, when お or ご is included in the answer!

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